


The Way We Sleep All Summer

by seblaiens



Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Cheating, Established Relationship, F/M, Parent-Child Relationship, Parenthood, Relationship Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 21:28:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7908232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seblaiens/pseuds/seblaiens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe they're not cut out for this. Maybe they made the wrong decisions, over and over again, never once really thinking about how it affects the other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Way We Sleep All Summer

**Author's Note:**

> lmao kill me. read captnalbatr0ss' or jfk-d's fics if u want good stuff.

“Bwaa,” Mason gurgles, a bit of spit dripping onto Harry's shirt as he tries to fit all of his fist into his mouth.

 

“No, dada,” Harry says, pulling out his sons fist out of his mouth and getting a tissue to wipe most of the spit before he spreads it over Harry's clothes, or worse, his face. Again. “It's about time you start calling me dad, by the way,” he continues as he balls up the tissue in his fist and throws it in the general direction of the bin. “I can't tell people I have a smart child if you don't start talking months before you should.”

 

Mason just looks at him with his big, gray eyes and gurgles again, before biting into Harry's shirt.

 

“A real genius,” Harry sighs as he plucks his shirt from between Mason's gums, no teeth there to tear the fabric, yet.

 

He's lying on the sofa of his new flat in London, a two-bedroom one this time. His old one was too small to raise a child in, and also probably full of mold and old dust that wouldn't have been good for an infant to breathe. Also, Chloe had complained about the paint falling off the wall and the fact that most of the doors didn't lock correctly anymore.

 

So now he has a new, nicer apartment, in a slightly shittier location.

 

But, _priorities_ , he tells himself as he holds onto Mason who threatens to roll off his chest as he tries to grab for Harry's nose.

 

A click of the lock on the door, and Chloe walks in, her hands full of bags of groceries. Harry heaves himself up from the couch, carrying Mason against his shoulder with one arm as he follows Chloe into the kitchen. He watches her as she starts stacking away the things she'd bought; fresh veggies, some frozen stuff for when they're both lazy, baby formula...

 

“Did you feed him yet?” Chloe asks as he stows away the formula in a cupboard above the sink, getting on her tip toes to put it in.

 

“Don't think he's hungry yet,” Harry answers, looking down at Mason, “you hungry yet?”

 

Mason just gurgles again.

 

“Guess not.” Harry shrugs his shoulders, and he sees Chloe smiling while shaking her head.

 

“I'll make him a bottle anyway, I want to lay him down for a nap after.”

 

Harry makes a noise akin to a yes as he rocks Mason up and down, still looking at Chloe. It's rare to see her smile like this – because of Mason, not in spite of him. Harry knows she regrets having him more often she does not, but he also know it kills her inside to admit it to herself, so he never asks her about it. If she can play pretend, he can play along.

 

The water boils in the kettle and Chloe prepares the bottle, letting cold water run over it to cool it down to a temperature that Mason can drink without problems. It's taken them some time to figure it all out, but now it comes like second nature. Harry wonders what he did all day before having a kid. Day drinking, probably. Or sleeping until the afternoon. Probably fucking his way through the neighborhood, as well.

 

“Hey,” he mumbles as he steps next to Chloe, putting his free arm around her waist. “You alright?”

 

“Yeah,” Chloe sighs as she lets a few drops fall out of the bottle and onto the back of her hand. “Bit home sick.”

 

“We can go back to Australia if you want.”

 

“I think-” Chloe hesitates for a few seconds as she takes Mason out of Harry's arms, “I think I might want to go alone, with him. Just for a few weeks.”

 

Harry nods even though the words hit him like a brick. _She doesn't want you anymore, she's sick of you._

 

Chloe doesn't look at him as she walks out of the kitchen and into the nursery.

 

Harry lays down in bed, exhausted from getting up at five in the morning, when Mason had woken them both up. If Mason was allowed a nap, he could take one as well, Harry figures as he gets under the cold covers, with his clothes still on. It takes about half an hour before Chloe comes to find him, getting into bed next to him, her hand reaching out to stroke over his back.

 

“Are you mad at me?” She asks, her fingers stilling when he doesn't react immediately.

 

“I don't know,” Harry answers honestly. He mostly just feels empty these days, when there's nothing to keep his mind occupied. There are more words he wants to say, but he opens and closes his mouth without any of them leaving his throat.

 

“I'll only go for a few weeks,” Chloe assures him, “visit my parents. They haven't seen him in months.”

 

Harry doesn't say that they haven't seen him in months either. He knows Chloe's mother doesn't like him, and her father is only on good terms with him to keep the peace. Her family and he are just not compatible, in that way.

 

He's too old for her in their mind, over forty and just now settling down, with the first steady job he's had in his life. They hate that he's the father of their grandchild, which they love so much they didn't leave him out of their arms when Harry and Chloe had visited, just a few months after Mason was born.

 

But most of all they hate that Chloe left Australia just to be with him.

 

“As long as you're coming back,” Harry tries to joke, but he can hear the desperation in his voice himself.

 

“Do you really think I'd just take him away from you?” Chloe sounds hurt, and Harry turns around to look at her. She looks exhausted, her usual tan gone and replaced with a sickly pale sheen. Her usual glow is a thing of the past, and she looks like just another girl, not like the amazing woman he had gotten to know so well before all of _this_.

 

“I think you'd leave him with me,” Harry says honestly. It's a surprise every morning to wake up and see Chloe still there, in the bed next to him, and not a hastily written note about her not being able to take this anymore.

 

Chloe is quiet as she scoots closer to him, until their bodies are touching, her breasts pressing against his chest. He puts one arm below her neck and his other around her body and on her ass, squeezing it before he lets his hand wander down over her thighs.

 

“I chose this,” Chloe mumbles, but it sounds more like she's trying to reassure herself than Harry.

 

“Sometimes we make the wrong decisions.”

 

“And even if we do, we have to accept and live with them.”

 

Chloe lets her hands slide beneath Harry's shirt, scratching through the hair on his stomach and chest, which he usually shaved off. It's been there for a while now – Harry's had no time or drive to take care of it.

 

Maybe she's not the only one who's tired.

 

“It's not very uplifting to hear you talk about it like that.”

 

“Hey,” Chloe whispers as Harry turns away from her, onto his back. She moves so she's lying half on top if him, one of her legs pressed into his crotch. “I'm not leaving you alone in this. He's as much my responsibility as he's yours.”

 

He gazes up at her, tries to remember how they were before she got pregnant. Careless, living in a filthy apartment, spending every second they could on the bed, fucking each other senseless. Harry lived for the weeks Chloe came to visit, counted the days until they promised to see each other again.

 

“I still love you,” Harry says and runs his hair through Chloe's hair. “Never stopped loving you.”

 

“I love you, too,” Chloe says, and Harry wouldn't have believed her if he hadn't stared at her face, no sign of her telling yet another lie to him. She's a great liar, but she's not that good. “I just feel like we're standing still. Me being away for a while... it'll be good, for us.”

 

“So... a break?”

 

“If you want to call it that. I won't be mad if you... find someone else. I know you get lonely.”

 

“I don't want someone else.”

 

Chloe leans down and kisses him, her tongue stroking over his lips until he opens his mouth. Harry's hands rest on her waist, slipping under her shirt and feeling over her ribs. She lost the weight after her pregnancy alarmingly fast, but Harry guesses she never put on too much, anyway. She hadn't looked pregnant until well into her third trimester. He'd worried, but their doctor told him it was normal for someone as active and thin as her.

 

Chloe sits up slightly and takes off her shirt, revealing her black bra. It's not lingerie, but Harry can still feel his cock twitch at the sight of it, his hands sliding up her back to open the clasps and bare her breasts. He stretches his neck and takes one of nipples in his mouth, sucking and biting at it until it hardens, then moving onto the other one. Chloe pushes him away after a few seconds, pulling off his shirt and opening his pants, pulling them down to his thighs together with his underwear. She has to climb down again to actually remove them completely, and she takes the opportunity to take off the rest of her clothes as well, getting back on top of Harry completely naked. The feeling of his coarse chest hair rubbing against her body makes goosebumps appear on her skin, and she moans as his hands slides between their bodies and cups her pussy.

 

“How do you want it?” Harry whispers in her ear, his lips brushing over her lobe.

 

“On my back,” Chloe decides, lying on her back, spreading her legs and pulling Harry on top of her. “Don't,” she says when Harry grabs for a condom, and he looks at her with raised eyebrows. “I want to feel you.”

 

“The last time we tried that-”

 

“I'm just about to get my period, nothing will happen.”

 

“Chloe...”

 

“Please,” she closes her eyes as she begs, “I want you to come inside me.”

 

Every apprehension Harry had floats away into thin air, and he puts the condom back onto the night stand, crawling back on top of Chloe. He takes his cock in his hands and rubs the tip over Chloe's clit, then downwards to her hole, and up again. It gets his cock wet and makes Chloe's muscles twitch with pleasure, her eyes still closed as she lets her head roll to her side, moaning softly. Harry licks his lips before he pushes inside of her, letting his forehead rest against hers, a groan escaping him when he feels her, hot and wet, without the dampening layer of a condom between them.

 

He loves nobody in the world as much as this woman, he realizes – not even his own son.

 

Her leaving would destroy him, and he'd only bother to pick up the pieces because he knows she can't turn her back on him forever. He'd sue for visitation rights if she took Mason with her, and she can't leave him behind, no matter how much she regrets having him.

 

Chloe's nails scratch over his back as he thrusts into her hard, making the bed rock against the wall behind it with a _thumping_ sound. Chloe's mouth is opened slightly, her eyes closed, as she moans, raising her hips to meet his thrusts. One of her hands reaches between them to rub over her clit, and Harry groans when her fingers brush over the base of his cock whenever he pulls out. He hasn't had unprotected sex since before Mason was born, with Chloe refusing to go on birth control, and he can feel himself getting close to orgasm already. Chloe's walls are gripping his cock and relaxing around it sporadically, and he knows she's close, so he keeps his thrust at the same pace, even thought he wants to go fast. She's moaning and her legs are quivering, and Harry can feel sweat gather at his hair line.

 

She comes with a strangled gasp and Harry takes this as his cue to thrust faster, sealing his mouth over hers as he comes inside her. He stays inside her for a few more seconds, feelings her pulse around him, before pulling out and rolling off her.

 

Chloe reaches for tissues on the night stand to clean up, wiping away the come that's already dripping out of her. She's never been one for jumping up and running to the bathroom straight away – she remembers having to change the sheets almost every day, back when she was pregnant. They were having sex all the time. Not so much now.

 

When she looks over to the other side of the bed, Harry is already turned away from her again, the duvet pulled tightly around him.

 

It's the first time he's turned away from her.

 

Her bags are packed within a week, two suitcases full of her and Mason's clothes. Harry stands leaned against the kitchen sink as he watches her put on her coat, Mason already strapped into his carrier. Charlie is bringing them to the airport, because Harry had refused to do so. He won't contribute to his own downfall, and he has half the mind to have a go at Cutter for agreeing to drive her.

 

“Charlie's downstairs already,” Chloe says as she steps into the kitchen, “I have to go now.”

 

“Okay.”

 

Chloe sighs and crosses her arms, staring down at the floor. “You don't have to make this harder than it already is.”

 

“This was your idea. Don't you even try to put this on me.”

 

“It's not about blame shifting,” Chloe raises her voice, fuming that Harry won't even try to understand her point of view. She's trying to save their relationship – they've never spent more than a few months at a time together, and suddenly living together, _forever_ , just doesn't _work_ with them.

 

“Sure,” Harry says as he pushes himself away from the sink, walking over to the table where Mason is lying in his carrier. He unstraps him and takes him out, holding him against his chest and shoulder and pressing a kiss against his head. He can't shake the feeling that he's losing his baby after fighting for him for so long, convincing Chloe for months that she should keep it.

 

And now she wants to keep him, and he's still not happy.

 

As if Mason understands the situation they're in, he starts crying, throwing his head back. Harry puts a hand behind just in time and starts rocking him, pressing another kiss to his forehead. Chloe tries to grab for him, but Harry turns them away from her.

 

“I can take care of my own son,” Harry spits out, trying to calm down Mason with shaky hands. Harry feels helpless when he just keeps crying, for no apparent reason, and won't calm down even when Harry starts whispering in his ear.

 

“Just let me help,” Chloe steps next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder and taking Mason out of his arms.

 

He stops crying just after a few seconds in Chloe's arms, talking in a soothing voice to him and rocking him softly up and down. Harry has to turn away. He feels betrayed, but he knows it's stupid to blame an infant for wanting to be held by his mother, instead of his massive fuck up of a father.

 

“Harry,” Chloe says after a few seconds. She hesitates before stepping behind him, putting a hand on his back, holding Mason with the other.

 

Harry composes himself and turns towards her again, leaning down to press a lingering kiss against her lips. No matter how upset he is by her leaving, he still wants her to go with a positive opinion of him. Him not being an asshole about this only betters the chances of her coming back, and he suddenly regrets refusing to drive her.

 

“Greet Charlie from me,” Harry whispers into her ear. He kisses her again, quickly this time, before also pressing a kiss against Mason's forehead.

 

“You two haven't gone out together in a while,” Chloe says, “you should, while I'm gone. Get out of the house for a bit.”

 

“Sure,” Harry answers, his promise empty. He has no intention of going out drinking with Charlie; it would only depress him.

 

Harry draws himself a bath as soon as Chloe's out of the door, waving a goodbye as he watches her leave. A memory of Chloe bathing Mason coming to his mind as the water rises; she had filled the tub with less than an inch of water, scared to death she'd accidentally drown Mason if she'd fill it any higher. Harry had watched on from the door, smiling and offering anything but advice. She'd gotten mad at him and splashed him with water, accidentally almost letting Mason fall into the water in the process.

 

Harry bites his tongue and undresses, letting himself sink into the hot water and trying to relax for what it feels like the first time in months. But the apartment is too quiet. There's no noise of Chloe watching TV or typing on her laptop, and there's no crying or laughing from Mason. It feels empty, and it'll feel empty until Chloe decides it's time for her to come back. She hadn't booked a return flight, and Harry starts to hate the fact that Mason has dual citizenship – she would have been forced to come back after three months, if he didn't.

 

With a long breath out his nose, Harry slides down the tub, pulling closer his legs so his head rest on the ground, under water. His eyes are open and the soapy water stings them, but he continues to stare up at the blurry ceiling until his breath runs out. Like that one time, when Chloe held him under water as she was stroking his cock

 

He comes up for air with a gasp, wiping his hair back and the water off his face. His phone is ringing, somewhere in the heap of clothes in front of the tub. He reaches for it. Charlie's name's on the screen, and Harry picks up hesitantly.

 

“Hello?”

 

“Yeah, boy, can I come over for a few beers?”

 

Harry leans back in the tub, placing his head on the edge. He knows Chloe put Charlie up to this, so he wouldn't have to spend the first evening completely alone, withering away in his apartment, but the prospect of having some company doesn't sound all that bad.

 

“Yeah, sure,” Harry mumbles eventually. He used to have a lot of fun with Charlie, before he started staying in on the weekends more often, having date nights with Chloe or taking care of Mason while Chloe was out with the few friends she had made in her time in London. He might have kind of neglected Charlie the past year, and it hurts to think about how much closer they used to be, back when their lives were still more similar. “How long till you're here?”

 

“Give me an hour, mate, I'll get some beers on the way.”

 

“You're a dear.”

 

“Anything for you, my love.”

 

Harry chuckles before they say their goodbye's and hang up, his heart feeling a little lighter already. He still has a live outside of Chloe and Mason, and maybe it's time to find it again.

 

Charlie shows up with the worst brew he could have bought, and Harry lays into him for it as he stores it away in his fridge, leaving out two bottles for them to drink now. They get on the couch and turn on the TV as background noise as Charlie tells him about a job he's taken that'll bring him to Israel in just a few days, and Harry listens intently as he describes his client.

  
“He asked for you actually, had to tell him you're out of the business. Partnered me up with some other bloke now, can't even remember his name.”

 

“Good to know I'm still appreciated in your part of the world,” Harry mumbles, peeling at the label of his beer. He didn't hate his new job as a teacher in an university, but it's quite the departure from what he used to do. At least he get's to talk about a topic he's passionate about, he guesses. With less guns and less risk.

 

And less pay.

 

“She cried in the car, you know,” Charlie says, staring at the carpet on the floor. Harry almost groans out loud at the change of topic. “So awkward. Didn't know how to react, you know?”

 

“As long as you didn't fuck her to cheer her up,” Harry grumbles, pulling out his cigarette packet from his pant pocket and lighting in. It's the first time he's smoking in the apartment, but he figures Chloe and Mason will be gone long enough for the smell to disappear.

 

“You think I'd do that? To you?” Charlie asks, hurt by the allegation. “I hit on her once, before I even knew you two were a thing.”

 

“No,” Harry admits, taking a drag, “I don't think you would.”  
  


They sit in silence for a while, Charlie slowly sipping his beer while Harry finishes his cigarette, putting it out by pressing it onto the glass coffee table. He gets up to get himself another beer, Charlie refusing one with the excuse of having to drive home later. Harry shrugs and gets himself one anyway – it's not like he's drinking alone, Charlie is still there.

 

“When she got pregnant,” Harry begins when he sits down on the couch next to Cutter again, “when she was pregnant, I told her not to pull shit like this. Running off.”

 

“Her tits were huge when she was pregnant.”

 

Harry almost spits out his beer. “They were fucking rocking, weren't they?”

 

“I couldn't sodding look at her for the last few months!” Charlie says, laughing, then sighing. “I was so jealous of you.”

 

“Not anymore?”

 

“I mean, don't get me wrong,” Charlie puts down his empty beer bottle and turns towards Harry, “she's a great girl, but I don't think I could do the whole... _parenting_ thing.”

 

“It's different when it's your own,” Harry explains. He used to hate it when people said that to him, back when he was still on the fence of having children. “I love Mason. So much.” He might have even started loving him sooner than Chloe did, but he never mentions it to anybody. Not even Chloe, even though she knows. He was the driving factor behind her deciding to keep Mason, after all – to keep Harry happy.

 

“I guess I'll find out. Someday.”

 

Charlie leaves just before midnight, and Harry crawls into bed pleasantly buzzed, too drunk to worry much about Chloe and the months before him he has to face alone. He pushes all but one pillow of the bed – it's always annoyed him that Chloe seems to need three pillows to herself to go to sleep.

 

He ends up waking up in the middle of the night and putting them back on the bed, because at least they still smell like her.

 

 

Mason's birthday is in just a week, and Harry hasn't heard a word back from Chloe since one day when she texted him that she got her period. He didn't know how to feel about that. He gave up trying to contact her at all when all he got were one word answers over whatsapp, mostly to his questions of if she's still alive and still in Australia. He loves her, but he doesn't let himself stoop lower, doesn't want to end up begging for the slightest sliver of attention.

 

Harry stays in his office at the University until late in the afternoon, preparing his lessons and even offering his students help if they have problems in his courses. A few take him up on it, and he spends his day going over freshman archaeology courses with them.

 

He resits the temptation when one of his students catches him alone in his office and makes it clear that she's interested – he turns around a photo of Chloe and him, holding Mason, and tells her that he has a family he loves very much. He still can't keep his eyes off her ass when she walks out of his office again, and he wonders if Chloe would do it. They both aren't angels, have cheated in relationship before – she still had sex with other men when they were just starting to see each other, until it got serious.

 

Until Mason was born Harry had even had doubts about him really being his.

 

He can't deny that Mason looks exactly like him, though. Except he's tanner, and his hair is jet black, like Chloe's, the Indian side of her heritage taking over quite drastically against Harry's pale skin and light hair. He knew his parents had to bite back some racist comments the first time he had turned up with Chloe by her side, when they asked where she was from and she had answered with Australia. He had raised his eyebrows at his mother before she could ask her where she was _really_ from.

 

“ _She doesn't seem to like me_ ,” Chloe had said on their drive back home to their apartment, worrying her lip between her teeth.

 

“ _She'll get over it_ ,” Harry had answered, taking his hand of the steering wheel for a second to stroke over Chloe's thigh, his hand brushing her pregnant belly. _“She's probably just mad I didn't marry you first.”_

 

Harry packs up his things well after five o'clock, the last one of the teachers still in the building. He gets some take out on his commute home – Indian, funnily enough, as if he could spite his mother by eating curry.

 

But even after eating and watching some stupid show on TV, he can't stop thinking about the offer his student made. He's pent up with sexual frustration, and the thought of Chloe basically giving him a free pass creeps back into his mind. He opens his phone and scrolls through his contacts, checking for his former fleeting _relationships_. His cock gives a weak twitches when he remembers one of the girls, long blonde hair and a body to die for, who he had met in a club a few months before getting with Chloe.

 

 _Amelia_ , he remembers, and he scrolls back up in his contact list, finding her number with a picture he stole off her Facebook profile. He hesitates a few seconds, but presses call nonetheless.

 

“Hello?” She answers after a few rings.

 

“Hey Amelia, it's Harry,” Harry says, feeling incredibly awkward. He's been out of the dating scene for a while, and there's no guarantee that she wants to meet him again, or even _remembers_ him. “We met in _Aces & Eights, _few months back?”

 

“Oh, yeah!” She exclaims, and he can hear the smile in her voice. “Scar face.”

 

“Yeah, still got that one,” Harry chuckles, running his finger over the scar on the left side of his mouth. “Are you in town?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Got time for me?”

 

“ _Of course_. Color me surprised though, didn't think I'd ever hear back from you. What happened?”

 

“I was... busy,” Harry tries to evade the question. “I can come over in an hour?”

 

Amelia gives him her address, and Harry gets up to take a shower. He has enough time to freshen himself up and trim places that need to be trimmed. He catches himself smiling in anticipation when he gets into his car, remembering the good times he had with Amelia, the few weekends spent in bed with her, fucking her until they were both sore and the sheets a mess. She'd been quite exciting, so much younger than him and not yet beat down by the weight of a real life.

 

They don't waste any time once he gets into her apartment, ripping off each others clothes before they even reach the bed. Harry takes her on her hands and knees, grabbing her hair and slapping her ass when she asks for it. She calls him daddy and Harry makes her shut up by pressing her face into the pillow, and he tries not to feel guilty when he ends up coming on her face after getting her off. He watches her as she licks his cock and her lips before he gets her some tissue to wipe off the rest. It smears her make up and makes it look like she was crying, and he wants to gather her up in his arms and tell her she could do so much better than him. She had just started university the last time they had seen each other – there must be guys in her classes that are a better fit than him.

 

“So, how's life?” He asks when they lie next to each other, passing a cigarette between them. He's not really that interested, but he can't stand lying next to someone after sex and having an awkward silence between them, when just minutes before he was fucking them to incoherence. It's what he liked about Chloe so much; she wouldn't shut up after sex, blab on until Harry has to tell her he actually wants to go to sleep that night, as well.

 

“Life is alright,” Amelia answers, “school is shite, hate it. How about you?”

 

“Busy. I'm a teacher now.”

 

“I don't even remember what you worked as before.”

 

“Odd jobs here and there, mostly.”

 

“So who got you to settle down?”

 

Harry looks at her with raised eyebrows. “I wouldn't be here if I was settled down, would I?”

 

“I don't know,” Amelia shrugs. “This reeks of an affair to me.”

 

Harry is quiet and takes the cigarette from between her lips, finishing it with a few, deep drags. He doesn't want to call this an affair – it isn't one. Chloe had told him it's okay, and even though he feels scummy lying next to another girl, it's not cheating in the normal sense.

 

“I guess.”

 

“Which poor girls heart are you breaking, you asshole?” Amelia asks, giggling. “She not enough for you?”

 

“Think I'm gonna go, it was fun,” Harry says with a look at his phone, avoiding the question. It's barely after midnight, but he doesn't want to stay any longer. He doesn't need some twenty-year-old telling him he's doing something wrong until he actually starts believing it.

 

“Sore spot I touched there? I didn't mean to upset you.”

 

“I'll get over it,” Harry says as he pulls up his underwear and jeans, fastening his belt before grabbing his t-shirt. Amelia stands up from the bed as well, still completely naked, and Harry can't tear his eyes away from her, her pale skin, small frame, and long blonde hair.

  
She's so different from Chloe – the kind of girl he used to go for, before her. Maybe that's why he thought of her. Trying to figure out if he wants to go back to his old life. But as he watches her grab for her shirt and pull it over her head, he doesn't feel anything other for her than pity.

 

They say their goodbye's at the door and Harry gives her a kiss, knowing that he'll never see her again. He drives home, feeling empty but at least sexually satisfied, and falls into bed without even showering, still reeking over sex, of _Amelia_. He's not aching for Chloe's touch anymore, his mind clear for what it feels like the first time in months, like he was drowning and finally his head breached the surface of the water that's pulling him down.

  
He doesn't like this feeling any more than the pining.

 

Harry wakes up to the bed moving behind him. The alarm clock on his bed side table says it's four in the morning as Chloe slides in next to him, hugging him from behind and pressing her face between his shoulder blades. Harry grumbles to show that he's awake, too tired to actually speak up.

 

“Go back to sleep,” Chloe whispers, wrapping her arms around his torso and kissing his back. “I just got home.”

 

Harry hums, almost falling back to sleep, but he turns around in Chloe's arms and pulls her close to his chest, kissing her forehead before finding her lips in the dark. She's naked except for her panties, and Harry can feel her breasts pressed against him as they wrap around each other.

 

“Hey baby,” Harry mumbles into her hair, his voice scratchy and low.

 

“Hey,” Chloe replies, “how are you?”

 

“Mm, tired. You came back.”

 

“Of course I did. I promised.”

 

Harry chuckles, biting back the comment of her promises not meaning much to him anymore. They're both too selfish to ever really keep them, anyway. He lets his hands run down her back, feeling the familiar outline of her body, finally next to him again. She smells like sweat, hasn't taken a shower yet after touching down back in London. Harry wonders who got her from the airport, or if she spent a small fortune on a taxi to get back to their apartment.

 

“I missed you,” Chloe says when Harry doesn't reply, biting her lip after, hoping for a declaration of love from Harry that never comes.

 

“Is Mason asleep?” He asks instead, his head slowly getting clearer as he wakes up fully.

 

“Yeah, he's in the nursery.”

 

Harry untangles their bodies and gets out of bed, grabbing a shirt on his way out the door. He doesn't look back at Chloe when he turns on the light in the hallway, walking straight into Mason's room. He doesn't turn on the lights in there, instead just leaves the door open so some of the light from the hallway illuminates his son's sleeping form inside his crib. Harry picks him up, careful not to wake him. He's grown in the months Harry hadn't seen him, gotten heavier, his hair longer than before. Harry strokes through it before pressing a kiss to Mason's forehead, holding him for a few more seconds before placing him back in the crib. He must be exhausted from the trip, because he doesn't even stir at the movement.

 

Harry walks to the kitchen to get himself a glass of water, not wanting to return to bed just yet. He thought he would be happy to have Chloe back, but all he feels right now is resentment. For leaving him to suffer through these months alone, taking away his child when he's in such important developmental years – who knows if Mason would even still remember him.

 

The glass of water calms his nerves a little, and he walks back to the bedroom, standing in the door way for a few seconds and looking at Chloe, her eyes closed.

 

And he feels like he needs a break.

 


End file.
